UK Beer Imports during WW II

Before WW I, beer imports into the UK were at a very low level – just 50,000 barrels in 1910.   This figure shot up, however to 1.3 million barrels in 1924.   There was a very simple reason for this sudden massive increase: Irish independence. Over 95% of imports were a single beer, Guinness Extra Stout.

As you can see in the table below, little had changed by the time WW II kicked off.  Much as before the first war, imports from the rest of the world remained at a meagre 50,000 barrels or so. Judging by the main sources of these imports – Denmark, Germany and the Netherlands – it’s safe to assume most of this was Lager.

All of the countries from which the UK imported any quantity of beer (other than the Republic of Ireland) were in Axis hands during the war. So it’s pretty obvious they wouldn’t be supplying any beer for the duration.

Sadly, I don’t have figures for the source of imports during the war years. However, I do have the numbers for total Irish exports. Adjusting these to strip out Foreign Extra Stout and using the OG of Guinness to convert standard barrels to bulk barrels, I can come up with a reasonable estimate of Irish imports. And it matches very closely to the total volume of imports. Not that that should be any great surprise.

The fall in imports from Ireland in 1943 and 1944 is as a result of a dispute between the Republic of Ireland and the UK. In late 1943, in order to force the UK government to export more grain to Ireland, the Irish government banned the export of beer. The UK caved in, fearing what would happen in Northern Ireland where the vast majority of beer sold was from the Republic. Almost all in the form of Guinness.

After the war, imports picked up pretty much where they had left off. The only exception being Germany, from which no beer was imported until 1953.  Lack of availability would have been one of the main reasons. In the immediate post-war years the occupying powers severely restricted brewing in Germany. The British, for example, only allowed brewing for UK troops stationed in Germany.

UK Beer imports 1936 - 1951
Country of Origin	1936	1937	1938	1950	1951
Irish Republic	1,380,343	1,256,212	836,624	1,031,159	1,025,902
Other British Countries	128	121	108	22	31
Total from British Countries	1,380,471	1,256,333	836,732	1,031,181	1,025,933
Denmark	17,867	22,560	25,459	17,686	23,058
Germany	16,953	18,669	18,813	-	-
Netherlands	8,824	9,143	8,708	2,685	3,492
Belgium	128	705	821	700	1,150
Czechoslovakia	3,806	3,882	3,810	915	903
Other Foreign Countries	241	180	278	224	1,703
Total from Foreign Countries	47,819	55,139	57,895	22,110	30,306
Total Bulk Barrels	1,428,290	1,311,472	894,627	1,053,291	1,056,239
Source:
“1955 Brewers' Almanack”, page 60.

Guinness Extra Stout exports to the UK 1939 - 1943
Years ended 31st March	1939	1940	1941	1942	1943
Irish Exports: Standard barrels	770,562	789,864	767,209	905,165	691,275
FES Exports: Standard barrels	17,639	18,810	17,630	9,847	13,864
Exports Extra Stout	752,923	771,054	749,579	895,318	677,411
Extra Stout OG	1055	1053	1048	1047	1046
Irish Exports: bulk barrels	752,923	800,150	858,893	1,047,712	809,947
UK imports	838,269	822,678	789,787	1,047,374	837,788
Sources:
“1955 Brewers' Almanack”, page 60.
“1955 Brewers' Almanack”, pages 107 - 110.

Guinness Extra Stout exports to the UK 1944 - 1947
Years ended 31st March	1944	1945	1946	1947
Irish Exports: Standard barrels	483,031	661,674	802,122	676,485
FES Exports: Standard barrels	22,660	19,939	15,338	29,974
Exports Extra Stout	460,371	641,735	786,784	646,511
Extra Stout OG	1046	1046	1046	1042
Irish Exports: bulk barrels	550,444	767,292	940,720	846,621
UK imports	572,389	765,602	929,028	860,161
Sources:
“1955 Brewers' Almanack”, page 60.
“1955 Brewers' Almanack”, pages 107 - 110.

Dublin Porter Shipments to Great Britain 1905 - 1908

Guinness's dominationof Irish brewing is nothing new. Especially when it comes to Stout. Though there may have been Dublin rivals, they were brewing on a far smaller scale than Guinness.

For one simple reason: Guinness had penertrated the British market. Which meant they had a massively larger potential customer base than if their operations had been limited to Ireland.

Dublin Porter Shipments to Great Britain 1905 - 1908
Brewery	1905	1906	1907	1908
Guinness & Co.	604,818	650,981	670,503	687,486
Watkins, Jameson & Co.	38,544	39,482	36,542	36,176
D'Arcy & Son	23,493	27,789	23,472	21,947
Mountjoy Brewery	30,498	29,562	27,513	25,523
Other shippers	228	0	0	22,835
Total	697,581	747,813	758,030	793,965
Source:
The Brewers' Journal, vol. 45, 1909, page 8.

Shipments to Britain from the other three other Dublin breweries were declining while those of Guinness were increasing. Eventually the trade of the other breweries would dwindle to nothing.

As you can see in the more detailed table below, in 1908 about a third of Gunness sales were in Great Britaion, the other two thirds in Ireland. When WW I erupted, the proportion shipped to Britain had increased to 40%. It increased even further after WW I, exceeding 50% in 1920.

Though even in 1904 Guinness was selling more Extra Stout in Britain than in Ireland, where the majority of their sales was in the form of Porter. Guinness actively discouraged the shipment of its Porter to Britain because they were afraid of it being passed off as Extra Stout. At this point Extra Stout had an OG of 1075º and Porter 1060º.

Guinness sales 1904 - 1914
	Extra Stout		Porter		other	totals
Year	Britain	Ireland	Britain	Ireland	total	Britain	Ireland	FES/Export	total
1904	584,598	494,949	1,375	849,883	74,980	585,973	1,344,832	74,980	2,005,785
1905	601,553	503,096	1,538	858,243	97,520	603,091	1,361,339	97,520	2,061,950
1906	643,878	509,573	1,572	857,919	113,204	645,450	1,357,492	113,204	1,482,268
1907	678,902	521,583	1,137	858,433	116,459	680,039	1,380,016	116,459	2,176,514
1908	695,562	531,337	963	859,977	100,799	696,525	1,391,314	100,799	2,188,638
1909	706,229	560,104	810	879,584	115,596	707,039	1,439,688	115,596	2,262,323
1910	782,281	593,459	1,231	901,660	135,860	783,512	1,495,119	135,860	2,414,491
1911	825,604	616,099	1,738	913,439	146,242	827,342	1,529,536	146,242	2,503,122
1912	913,659	674,868	556	926,592	157,880	914,215	1,601,460	157,880	2,673,555
1913	1,022,077	736,563	276	930,173	139,150	1,022,353	1,666,735	139,150	2,828,243
1914	1,070,814	731,511	116	897,455	141,844	1,070,930	1,628,965	141,844	2,642,740
Source:
"A Bottle of Guinness please" by David Hughes, pages 276-279

Numbers, eh? What could be more fun? Yes, obviously certain things people do in private without clothes. but otherwise, what can beat the existential thrill of scraping back the dirt to reveal a fresh number hoard? And can I come up with a paragraph containing more question marks?

UK Beer Exports 1937 - 1949

Between the wars UK beer exports trundled along at between 200,000 and 350,000 barrels  annually. Which was about half the level it had been pre-WW I, when 500,000 to 650,000 barrels were exported each year.

Clearly the war was going to have an impact on exports. Especially as one of the main destination for UK exports, Belgium, had been occupied by the Germans.  In addition, German U-boats made shipping anything across the Atlantic a dangerous enterprise. And in the early phases of the war British shipping in the Mediterranean was susceptible to German or Italian attacks from the air. Plus most shipping capacity was reserved for war material or essential items, such as food.

Given all these negative factors, it’s no shock that beer exports shrank considerably in the early years of the war:

Belgium appears to have been receiving supplies if British beer right up until the Germans invaded. The trade didn’t resume until a couple of years after war’s end. The quantity of beer going to British colonies dried to a trickle between 1942 and 1944. 

Exports hit a nadir in 1942, a year when the war was only just starting turn in the Allies’ favour.

Not all the export markets were as large after the war as they had been before. India and the Straits Settlements, for example, were taking less than half the beer they had done pre-war. In the case of India, this was doubtless due to the withdrawal of British troops and administrators after independence in 1947. Belgium, on the other hand, imported similar quantities as pre-war. While more beer was shipped to the West Indies after the war than before it.

In the 1950s, UK exports stabilised at around 250,000 barrels a year – similar to what they had been in 1939. Though the destinations changed, as the British Empire slowly withered away and with it the former colonial markets.

UK beer exports by destination 1937 - 1943
Destination	1937	1939	1940	1941	1942	1943
Egypt	12,960	26,597	28,857	28,519	3,658	45
Irish Free State	119,763	52,081	35,306	25,843	16,730	14,810
British W. Africa	9,432	12,468	13,873	22,328	15,544	19,161
India & Straits Settlements	75,349	63,186	69,963	62,260	11,523	638
Brit. West India	10,298	10,925	8,499	8,081	5,082	6,629
Belgium	40,637	29,140	13,080
Other Countries	72,318	89,577	97,188	78,521	42,259	65,736
Total	340,757	283,974	266,766	225,552	94,796	107,019
Source:
Brewers' Almanack 1955, page 57.

UK beer exports by destination 1944 - 1949
Destination	1944	1945	1946	1947	1948	1949
Egypt	4,804	2,966	12,536	12,709	7,587	6,999
Irish Free State	4,878	128	221	3,280		6,201
British W. Africa	10,225	1,190	1,574	5,797		34,626
India & Straits Settlements	2,506	38,333	69,278	8,130	27,538	27,750
Brit. West India	1,701	7	251	1,045		14,009
Belgium						33,786
Other Countries	53,483	78,732	97,860	71,642	169,973	130,756
Total	77,597	130,443	187,418	109,680	205,098	254,127
Source:
Brewers' Almanack 1955, page 57.

Let's Brew - 1867 Barclay Perkins XXX Ale

A very special treat today. A Mild worthy of March or May. Or even Middlemarch.

Because this is a beer specifically mentioned by George Eliot in one of her essays:

"German ennui must be something as superlative as Barclay's treble X, which, we suppose, implies an extremely unknown quantity of stupefaction."

I think it's safe to assume that the beer she means in Barclay Perkins XXX. For which I obviously have several brewing records. Including this lovely one from 1867.

By this point Barclay Perkins was no longer the largest brewery in the world, but it remained huge by the standards of the day. In 1867 it brewed 423,444 barrels, and was second in London after Truman, which brewed an impressive 554,955 barrels that year.*

You probably won't be surprised to learn that this was Barclay's strongest Mild Ale. It is a pretty powerful beer. Though not one that was around much longer: it was discontinued sometime in the 1870s. If I'd got my arse in gear and photographed the records between 1870 and 1880, I'd be able to give you a more precise date. But I didn't so I can't.

There's not much to the recipe: one type of pale malt and Mid-Kent hops from the 1866 harvest. A shitload of hops. I've knocked down the quantity a little for the recipe. But, as this was brewed in March 1867, the hops were pretty fresh.




* "The British Brewing Industry, 1830-1980" T. R. Gourvish & R.G. Wilson, pages 610-611.

1867 Barclay Perkins XXX Ale
pale malt	21.00 lb	100.00%
Goldings 75 mins	4.00 oz
Goldings 60 mins	4.00 oz
Goldings 30 mins	4.00 oz
OG	1093
FG	1034
ABV	7.81
Apparent attenuation	63.44%
IBU	132
SRM	9
1st Mash at	153º F
2nd Mash at	159º F
Sparge at	188º F
Boil time	75 minutes
pitching temp	62º F
Yeast	Wyeast 1099 Whitbread Ale

Porcine excrement

Here's an extract from my much-neglected anthology of child torture. Sorry, travels with my infant sons. I would call them little bastards, but they resemble me in far too many ways.

The little bastards, sorry kids, have challenged me to shift more than ten copies of "Can We Go Home Now?" Maybe this extract will persuade you to help me win:

Lemmy's Biercafé
"What do you want?"
"A bacon and egg sandwich."
"A restraining order."
"A pint of Mild."

They didn't have any of these. But the orders did range from the unrealistic to the fantastic.

I'm sitting on a separate table to the kids. It works better that way if I want to write. I would complain of the kids spoiling the day with their antics. In reality, they've given loads of material. What's more important - fun or good material? You know the answer.

You want a description? Alright, brown café, corner location, some sort of music theme. They're playing - and have photos of - early 70's music stars. Is this life on Mars? Musically, yes. Brown wood, board floor. I'm bored. Chairman of the bored. There's a noticeable lack of Iggy here.

"I told you we'd have fun." I always say that. Luckily, today it was true. The kids love the idea of somewhere that invites mess. You're expected to throw your peanut shells on the floor. It's a big hit. I'm as happy as a porcine animal in excrement. They shut up and are just are revelling in litter. Perfect. Whisky time for dad.

Mmm. Maybe that's not such a greeat advert. Not sure what sort of day I was having then.

Want to discover more of my fatherly failings? Buy the effing book. Though I prefer to call them eccenticities rather than failings. But that doesn't alliterate. Unlike buy books.

Girls Get Public House Habit

One of the features of WW II that I like is how the temperance twats carried on much as they had in WW I. But they were completel;y ignored by the authorities.

They held meetings, passed resolutions, wrote letters to newspapers. All to zero effect. It must have been quite disheartening. It almost makes you feel sorry for them. Almost.

Women drinking had been a particular obsession of these twats, as it had been in the 19th century. In fact, moral outrage at females daring to enjoy a drink lasts to this day amongst the scummier elements of the British press. Which is pretty hypocritical, given what a bunch of pissheads journalists are.

"GIRLS GET “PUBLIC HOUSE HABIT”
Our young people are getting into the public-house habit.” declared the Rev. Walter Steele, of Consett, at the annual Synod of the Sunderland and Durham district of the Methodist Church at Sunderland yesterday.

The matter was creating great concern, he said, as every night one sees crowds of girls in public-houses. A conductress of a bus actually ordered a pint in one to begin with. Mostly they are very voting people and what are we to do? 

"These are the days of increased wages, but when the milk bars are closed, and the cafes offering very little, and they find two nights of dancing sufficient, well, they are a loose end.

"I have,” he added, been talking to some friends whose daughters are in the Forces.

Their reports are very distressing. One girl told that every night in her hut at least two girls were drunk, and she had to hide her valuables under her pillow for fear they were stolen.

"Another girl in the Wrens said some of the girls did not arrive until very late, and four of them who were drunk said they had spent the greater part of the night on a ship.

”It is a serious position, yet our present Government goes out of its way to encourage brewers to push forward their trade. Lord Woolton’s speech in the House of Lords was amazing.”

CALL TO GOVERNMENT
He moved a resolution urging the Government to take the necessary steps to reduce the manufacture of alcoholic drinks, which destroyed barley and sugar.

The Rev. J. H. J, Barker (Thompson Memorial Hall. Sunderland) said he made it his business to visit a number of public houses every Saturday night, and there he saw girls of scarcely legal age drinking.

"As a Methodist Church we are letting our Bands of Hope and temperance societies slide,” complained the Rev. William Armstrong (Chester-le-Street).

Alderman Bloomfield asserted that gambling ought to be dealt with by the churches, instancing raffles.

The motion was carried.

Motions urging the Government to reduce the number of days allowed for horse and dog racing, and against the sacredness of the Sabbath being affected Home Guard and A.T.C.s being called upon to train on a Sunday morning were also adopted.

At a private session a resolution moved by the Rev. Prank Spencer (Sunderland) and adopted by a large majority, expressed the Synod’s strong conviction that the hopes and aspirations now being cherished for a better national and international life can only realised as they are the expression of the Christian spirit and of Christian principles."
Newcastle Journal - Thursday 14 May 1942, page 4.

There's some great sexist crap in there. Fancy a woman daring to order a pint? And weaselly phrases like "girls of scarcely legal age drinking". That is, women who were over 18 and as free as adult men to indulge in the odd drink or two.

Why did they keep banging on about women so much? Because it was easier to provoke moral outrage.  Complaining about soldiers or sailors drinking, I'm sure they realised, was much less likely to be accepted by the general public.

This was the swansong of the first set of temperance lunatics. They still behaved as if it still had the ear of the government, when it had long since stopped paying attention to their counterproductive demands.

Brewing beer does not destroy barley and sugar. The beer produced from these ingredients retains almost all their food value. This is one of the great - and oft repeated - temperance lies.

An early CAMRA member writes

about the pricing of beer in pubs.

It does read a bit like a letter you'd find in What's Brewing from the beery equivalent of Angry of Tunbridge Wells:

"A PUBLIC HOUSE GRIEVANCE
To the Editor of "The Citizen."
Sir, —In some cases, where an extra penny per pint is charged, the latest public house racket is to serve only in the best rooms and close the public bar. Just how a publican can be permitted by the authorities to close the bar when the best rooms are open beats me. Surely if a public house open at all the whole place should be? I have heard it suggested that the reason for this is the shortage of beer. All things being equal, I maintain that the so-called "roughs" of the bar are much entitled to be served in the public bar as are the elite who patronise the best rooms! How can it be said that there is a shortage of beer when the best rooms are open and the bar closed? Isn't it the extra pennies the brewers or licensees are after? I see that quite number of front doors remain cloned whilst the side doors are open. Also, secret "knocks" still prevail.

Yours faithfully,
"DISGUSTED."
Gloucester Citizen - Saturday 11 April 1942, page 4.

Profiteering brewers and landlords. No wonder Mr. Angry is disgusted. Sorry, Mr. Disgusted is angry.

To put that extra penny per pint into perspective, it had remained the same since beer was 4d to 8d per pint in pre-war days. Though the cheapest beer - watery 4d Mild - would never have been sold in the posher rooms. In 1942, when this article was written, the prices had risen to 9d to 15d. In the public bar.  Making drinking posh much less relatively expensive.

When I were a lad, and Mild and Bitter were 14p and 15p a pint, beer was 1p dearer in the rooms with a carpet. Money thrown away, in my eyes. Pubs in Leeds, where I spent most of my formative drinking years, mostly retained a multiroom layout. And differential pricing.

The knocking through of bars into one room has mostly removed the possibility of this weird relic of the class system. Though, obviously, it just meant that prices were levelled up to those of the the lounge.

It must seem odd to anyone under 30 that pubs once had different prices in different rooms.

Let's Brew Wednesday - 1851 William Younger 120/-

In the middle of the 19th century, the higher number Shilling Ales had daunting gravities. 100/- and upwards all had gravities over 1100º.  The Scots certainly like their beer strong back then.

The Shilling Ales seem to have been mostly destined for local consumption. Pale Ale, Stout, Table Beer and the occasional super-strong Ale were Scotland’s main exports. The bulk of the Shilling Ales weren’t going far. Probably no further South than Sunderland.

The main features of this iteration of 120/- are the short boil and fairly heavy hopping. Though, given the very high OG, it’s by no means excessive. The short boil is slightly surprising, given that this was brewed single-gyle.

It’s strange how many of William Younger’s very strong beers were brewed that way. Normal practice would have been to brew something of that gravity in a parti-gyle with a weaker beer. In Younger’s context, something like 50/- or 60/-.

It’s not total clear what the source of the malt was for this brew. There were 21 quarters of “Com” and 10 quarters of “Ch”. I suspect the former was malt bought in from maltsters, while the latter was malt they made themselves. Or maybe the other way around. But it does look as if, just like with the hops, that it was all sourced from the UK.

1851 William Younger 120/-
pale malt	27.50 lb	100.00%
Goldings 75 min	4.00 oz
Goldings 50 min	2.00 oz
Goldings 20 min	2.00 oz
OG	1118
FG	1047
ABV	9.39
Apparent attenuation	60.17%
IBU	72
SRM	8
Mash at	154º F
Sparge at	184º F
Boil time	75 minutes
pitching temp	55º F
Yeast	WLP028 Edinburgh Ale

This is one of the 300-odd recipes in my definitive book on Scottish beer:

http://www.lulu.com/shop/ronald-pattinson/scotland-vol-2/paperback/product-23090497.html 

Scottish Table Beer 1840 - 1880

Hi there. Being a lazy bastard again. Here's something I write about Scottish beer earlier. Because I can't be arsed to think up some of those new wordy things.

Arsed - being it, not being it. Where does that expression come from? I'm going Manchester.

While you're thinking about that, here's the boring shit:

Scottish brewers had quite a reputation for producing top-class Table Beer. This is reflected in the fact that it was often exported to England. While what Table Beer there was brewed in England was usually for quick, local consumption.

One of the odd characteristics of Scottish brewing is that it featured far more beers at the top and bottom end of the strength range than in England. Table Beer also hung around longer in Scotland. The last London Table Beer I’ve seen in the brewing records was produced in 1869. While William Younger was still brewing one in 1898.

The “beer” part of the name wasn’t random. The weakest malt liquors in the 18th century were almost always beers because, with low levels of alcohol, they needed the extra protection of more hops. And you can clearly see evidence of that in William Younger’s Table Beer, which was hopped at 11 to 12 pounds per quarter of malt. That’s a similar hopping rate to a Stock Ale.

Younger continued to brew a similar Table Beer in the succeeding decades, though the gravity fell over time, as did the hopping rate after 1868.

There’s not a huge deal to say about the grists. For the whole period they were 100% pale malt. Other than right at the start, when sometimes it was 100% pale malted bigg.

William Younger Table Beer 1848 - 1849
Date	Year	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
15th Apr	1848	T	1035	1010	3.31	71.43%	12.00	1.74
14th Nov	1849	T	1040	1014	3.44	65.00%	11.00	1.69
Source:
William Younger brewing record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document number WY/6/1/2/3.

William Younger Table Beer 1851 - 1879
Year	Beer	OG	FG	ABV	App. Atten-uation	lbs hops/ qtr	hops lb/brl
1851	T	1037	1013	3.18	64.86%	12.00	1.69
1852	T	1037	1011	3.44	70.27%	11.11	1.32
1858	T	1035	1014	2.78	60.00%	16.43	1.44
1868	T	1031	1010	2.78	67.74%	16.25	1.37
1879	T	1030	1005	3.31	83.33%	6.67	0.89
Sources:
William Younger brewings record held at the Scottish Brewing Archive, document numbers WY/6/1/2/5, WY/6/1/2/14, WY/6/1/2/21 and WY/6/1/2/28.

The text above is an excerpt from my tone-setting volume on the history of Scottish beer. It's dead good. Believe me.

http://www.lulu.com/shop/ronald-pattinson/scotland-vol-2/paperback/product-23090497.html 

Knock Three Times

A lazy, let's just find something in the newspaper archive while I cook Sunday dinner. It is a fun mine I found, mind.

Some of the most interesting of Charles Booth's interviews, taken in the East End in the 1890s, were those with publicans and former policemen. Which discussed the unwritten - and often technically illegal - rules of interaction between the two.

The relationship between the beat bobby and landlords was a complex one. Publicans were keen to keep the local constables onside, to be sure of help dealing with unruly customers. For which the policeman was rewarded with a cigar. Or a free drink or two. The latter being very much against the law, if he was on duty.

Paying the police - again very illegal - was also common. A Mr. Cox, who owned five pubs, including the Pembury Tavern admitted: "Every week he pays 1/- per week to the police as "call money".

Knowing this, I'm pretty sure that there was an existing relationship between landlord and policeman in this case.

"3 KNOCKS AT PUBLIC HOUSE DOOR
P.C. GIVEN BEER OUT OF HOURS
Police-Constable Joseph William Taylor of the Liverpool City Police Force, Cherry-lane, Walton, was summoned at Liverpool Police Court, today, accused of having consumed liquor outside permitted hours, while on duty, at a publichouse in Bevington-hill at 10.25 p.m. on August 22. He pleaded not guilty.

Mr. J. E. Bishop, prosecuting, said that at 10.25 p.m. on this date a plain-clothes sergeant on duty saw Taylor, who was also on duty, go to the side door of the public-house and knock three times. The door was opened by the woman licensee, and the sergeant heard the accused say, "It’s me."

The sergeant, added Mr. Bishop, then walked up to the door and gave three knocks and was admitted by the licensee. The sergeant searched the premises and found Taylor hiding behind a curtain in the saloon bar with a pint glass of beer in his hand.

Mr. Bishop said, "I must suggest that Taylor rather forced his way into the premises and somehow persuaded the licensee to supply him with drink."

Taylor, in evidence, said he did not consume any drink on this night. He admitted, in cross-examination that he was about to drink it.
Police-Superintendent C. S. Wheeldon said Taylor had a good character. He had been awarded a medal for stopping a runaway horse.

The Stipendiary fined Taylor 10s.

DEMAND FOR LIQUOR ALLEGED.
Mrs. Lily Eales, aged 36, licensee of a public-house in Bevington-hill, pleaded guilty to having aided and abetted Taylor to consume the liquor.

Mr. Bishop said that a policeman in uniform came into the public house and "practically demanded” that he should be supplied with liquor.

Mr. R. K. Milne, defending, said Mrs. Eales was in a quandary. She did not like to refuse the police constables.

The Stipendiary said that in view of what he had been told he would dismiss the summons with a caution against Mrs. Eales, on payment of 4s. costs."
Liverpool Evening Express - Thursday 11 September 1941, page 1.

There were good reason for maintaining good relations with your local copper when you were a publican. They could make your life very difficult and potentially take away your livelihood. Which is why Mrs. Eales "not like to refuse the police constables".

That the constable said "it's me." is another giveaway. It clearly wasn't the first time this had happenend. It seems an amazing coincidence that the plain clothes sargeant, also on duty, should have randomly been on the spot. My guess is that they knew Taylor was drinking on duty and deliberately trapped him. Which would also explain why the prosecution was very leniant on the landlady.

Knocking three times was obviously a signal.